Former IBF Super Featherweight titlist Malcolm Klassen (24-5, 15 KO’s) seemed a man on a mission Saturday night at the Toyota Center in Houston Texas . His mission was to help Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero (25-1-1, 17 KO’s), win his IBF title. He did a fine job of it too. Though the fight was billed as a Super Feather fight, both men entered the ring as Jr. Welterweights at 142 for Klassen, and 144 for Guerrero, nearly a Welterweight! Why have weight classes and then come to fight two weight classes up? How is that right? Weigh-ins should be the day of the fight, not the day before. It’s not healthy to dehydrate the body that drastically to make an unnatural weight and then re-hydrate at least ten pounds or more than you’re supposed to be when you step into the ring.

How cheap are these titles these days? How does Guerrero deserve a title shot? When you fight for Golden Boy Promotions, HBO bends over backwards for you. At least it seems that way. Does anyone wonder why? HBO commentators continually massaged the notion that this performance by Guerrero was ‘redemption’ for quitting a fight he should have continued against Doud Yordan back in March, where after Guerrero suffered what looked to be a manageable cut in the second round, he said he couldn’t see out of the eye. It was ruled a No Contest and Yordan, who traveled all the way from Indonesia , had to go home with a N.C on his record. Hey, fair is fair but does anyone think Guerrero would get on a plane, fly to Indonesia and fight Yordan in a rematch on his turf? Let’s not get crazy.

There’s only one road for Guerrero if he wants redemption for appearing to be a quitter: Go fight a rematch with Doud Yordan. In Guerrero’s next two carefully arranged match ups, he has been cut and didn’t quit. The fight with Malcolm Klassen was just too easy. Are we to believe that the former IBF titlist isn’t that good? Klassen only fought about 25% of each round. How’d he win a major title? By winning a title eliminator bout against 37 year old Manual Medina. Remember him? What exactly is the value of all these alphabet soup titles?

Guerrero should fight a rematch with Doud Yordan and show his real toughness and then, win or lose, he’ll have redemption. Anything else is irrelevant. Yordan looked poised to win that fight, based on how easily he was handling Guerrero. Hey, injuries happen and when a fight is stopped due to injury, there should automatically be arrangements for a rematch. No ifs ands or buts. Anything less is shady business. Its also shady business that Guerrero gets to fight for a major title when he hasn’t done enough to deserve it at this point.

Guerrero is a decent fighter, who usually puts on a good show, depending on who his promoter selects for him to fight. Fact is, the only thing that should determine who fights who, is a legitimate rankings system based on merit and not influence. And boxing doesn’t have one of those, the rankings today are based on bribery and marketing.

Maybe fans don’t know, care or understand all the politics that steer boxing, but we can tell things should be better. As a fan, I want to see competitive fights, where you don’t know who is going to win. I want to see tournaments in every division that will produce real Champions instead of a bunch of titlists that don’t fight each other. We need to stop this nonsense of having four or five “champions” in each division. It’s ridiculous and insults our intelligence. Boxing is a great sport but the people who run it these days are killing it…even to hard core fans who eventually will say, “Enough is enough.”